


Previously on Other People's Heartache

by maddieaddam



Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied Relationships, M/M, Masturbation, Mental Breakdown, Minor Character Death, Mutual Masturbation, Rare Pairings, Sad Ending, Stupid Sexy Roe, Unrequited Love, Wet Dream
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-09-06 03:33:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,092
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8733157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maddieaddam/pseuds/maddieaddam
Summary: At first, Ralph Spina is in awe of Eugene Roe; when this switches to in love with his fellow medic, he’s not sure, but he is aware that he's not the only one.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is a work of fiction inspired by, and intended only to represent, the roles in the HBO miniseries Band of Brothers as played by the actors. No disrespect is meant to the real men of Easy Company. 
> 
> Rarepairs and multishipping are two of my favourite things; unfortunately, unrequited love comes in at number three. Title is from the eponymous song by Bastille.

Ralph Spina enlists in the army, and then joins the war itself, with a very strong feeling that he shouldn’t expect anything before he has some experience under his belt. Assuming the worst will likely leave him consumed with dread, which will just sap his energy before he’s had a chance to know if it’s justified, while being too optimistic might mean that he enters combat unprepared and performs under his actual ability – and what the company needs. 

After all, he reasons, he’s already been surprised. He didn’t expect to be chosen as a medic, nor to join the 101st or be placed in Easy Company at that, who are already known as the elite of the elite after Normandy. There is a certain amount of anticipation that comes with those surprises, and a bit of apprehension, but Spina’s always been a pretty even-tempered sort of guy and he figures he can even bring that into the context of a war. 

As it turns out, he’s picked the absolute best strategy to cope with his early days as a replacement medic, because the surprises just keep coming. He doesn’t expect to arrive in the frozen hellscape that is the Ardennes to find the company without winter clothing, nearly out of ammo, and his own med kit hurting for absolute basics like morphine, sulfa and _bandages_ ; he doesn’t expect to run into his old pal Bill Guarnere, or that Bill will have a new buddy from the same neighbourhood with whom he hits it off just as well, a really funny guy who calls himself Babe; he certainly doesn’t expect to find himself learning the final pieces of the job, the stuff one can’t really pick up in basic, from a medic that seems to be held in absolute awe by the rest of the company.

Really, he doesn’t expect anything about Eugene Roe at all, because he never could. He doesn’t think _anyone_ could ever expect to meet a person like Eugene Roe, not in their entire lifetime. Encircled on all sides by bitter cold, chaotic and too often lethal combat, blood forever staining the pristine white of the landscape, Spina gets an education from Doc Roe that, perhaps, has long been overdue.

-

Eugene Roe, or Doc Roe as they call him – Babe tells him that he’ll be Doc Spina before long, but you need to earn it with companies like Easy – runs exactly like a gazelle. This would be incredible enough to watch in the African savannah, but the fact is that they’re in a frozen forest, the ground slippery and hard as rock with layers of frost and snow making it all the more treacherous. The very trees that form the high, glittering cathedral of the forest are frozen so solid that they shatter on impact, and when that impact comes from a mortar shell, the splinters of wood become yet another potentially lethal form of shrapnel.

Through all this, Doc Roe sprints on such light feet that he almost seems to be dancing, feet alighting on fallen tree trunks for barely a split second before he springs off and continues to move forward. He stops on a dime to take unexpected corners, banks over ridges of ground left uneven by shelling or foxhole digging, even tucks into a compact little ball when he seems to _sense_ rather than hear incoming fire and rolls to cover before he can be hit. 

It’s a spectacular display of grace and athleticism, both impressive and quite daunting to the man who’ll be expected to live up to this level of performance. 

Doc Roe also has a much deeper voice than one might expect from a man of his small build, always pitched so low that it takes total focus to pick out every word, and every word is always of the utmost importance because he speaks so few and chooses those he does so carefully. When one of the men is injured badly enough that it takes all the medic hands available to keep him in stable condition, Spina will start the plasma IV while Doc Roe ties off bandages, or simply hold down limbs to keep the torso steady enough for Doc to work, and listen to the steady, soothing stream of comfort that leaves his lips in musical whorls of lilting Southern drawl. 

It feels almost like stealing comfort never meant for him, because while the words themselves are simple enough – _you’re alright, it’s not that bad, you’ll be fine, I got you_ – they’re pitched at that same intimate level that makes overhearing them an unintentional and unavoidable act of eavesdropping. 

There’s an irrational part of Spina, inexplicable even to himself, that thinks about being injured sometimes. Almost fantasizes about it: just some little graze on his arm or leg, far from vital organs and major arteries, but enough to bring Doc Roe with his warm, placid voice and deft hands. It’s not a physical thing, or at least he doesn’t believe that’s the primary reason for these thoughts, and it’s certainly not a sexual thing – it’s more about comfort, as tensions grow higher and bodies grow colder, stomachs emptier and nights of sleep shorter. What he’s looking for is the equivalent of his mother’s hand on his brow when his childhood self had a fever, a break from the madness in which an expert caretaker bends all of his attention to caring for him and only him. 

At first. Things take a turn after he watches Doc Roe’s hands more closely during some emergency suturing, and they never quite turn back.

-

“Gene’s a weird guy,” Babe says when Doc inevitably comes up between the two of them, Spina parked in one of the deep trenches at the front line where Babe’s keeping watch. He’ll probably catch hell if the wrong person sees him here rather than moving around, keeping ready for the call if it should come, but he’s already discovered that he hasn’t got half Doc Roe’s stamina – if he’s gonna be running around like that, he needs some rest during down time. 

“Weird?”

“You never noticed?” After a sheepish little huff when Spina shakes his head, Babe shrugs and changes tack: “Alright, maybe not weird, but not like anyone I ever met before. You see any good reason for him to be so formal all the time out here?”

“Nah, but it’s -” _Cute_ , Spina finishes in his head, and then immediately casts through his mind for something he can actually say aloud. “- funny. I just think he’s interesting. Could be less of a goddamn superhero around here, though.”

Babe’s turn to shake his head at that, leaning back against the trench enough to catch Spina’s eye without facing away from the line. “Don’t worry about that, Ralph,” he says quickly, his smile magnanimous. “No one’s expecting you to be like him, y’know? Just patch up the holes, keep us alive and you’re good.”

That’s got to be the least comforting reassurance Spina’s ever heard in his life, so bad that he ends up laughing instead of feeling the sting that’ll probably surface later. “Babe,” he wheezes through his laughter, “how much better would you feel if you showed up here and some putz said ‘Don’t worry, Babe, you don’t gotta be as good as ol’ Wild Bill over there, just point your gun at the right guys and hit ‘em more times than you don’t.’”

“It’s not the same -”

“It’s _exactly_ the same!”

“Hey, kids,” Bill’s voice suddenly speaks up behind them, quieter than their own raised voices – which are raised far too high, Spina thinks belatedly, especially with them positioned right on the front line – but full of rebuke. “Wanna fight this out somewhere it’s not gonna get one or both of your heads blown off? I don’t mean to get sentimental, but I like you better with ‘em where they are.”

Babe says that Doc is weird, but Spina has a feeling it’s Babe who _gets_ weird when it comes to the topic of Doc – Babe, who doesn’t call him Doc but Gene, not a common nickname among the men from what Spina’s heard. He tries to avoid the topic from then on.

-

Sometimes Spina gets weird about Doc Roe, too.

Some nights he snaps from asleep to awake more quickly than even a cry of “medic” can tear him from a dead rest, eyes fixed on the tarp over his head, breath short and body trembling and warm wetness cooling fast in his trousers. He presses a hand to one flushed cheek, marvels that his face should feel so overheated when the air around him could probably keep him perfectly preserved until mid-Spring if he bought it in this very foxhole. 

Then he stops avoiding the fact that he just awoke from a wet dream about his fellow medic for just long enough to wonder what in God’s name war is already doing to him, digs out something from his med kit that won’t leave him short of supplies that could save a man’s life and wipes himself somewhat clean, and closes his eyes to chase one or two more hours of sleep. He never quite seems to catch up to them after that, though.

Some nights he wakes up with his hand shoved right down his pants and wrapped around his cock, hips still jerking frantically, and he can’t bring himself to stop when he’s so damn close. Not even when he screws his eyes shut and Doc Roe is still all he sees, all jet black hair and chalk white skin like some kind of Uncle Sam we-want-you spin on Snow White, lips pursed and brows drawn low in concentration and he’s still deciding if he’d rather coax those lips open with his tongue or kiss all those deep frown lines away when he chokes out something that sounds a lot like a sob and spills over his hand.

Sometimes he’s not even lucky enough to be alone: Doc’s _right there_ , ordering him off on a search for some life-saving supply that’s been allowed to dwindle right out of their kits, but Spina hardly hears him because he’s gesturing along with his words and his hands are as graceful as his body’s movements when he sprints through the snow. He hardly hears him because he thinks about those fingers trailing down the path of his spine to the curve of his lower back, or closing around his thigh sometime when they’re seated side by side and giving it a suggestive little squeeze, or finding just the right grip on his cock to toe the line between unbearable tease and overwhelming force until Spina thinks he’ll go crazy. Or maybe crazier, right around the bend.

He hardly hears Doc, who says, “ _Spina_ ,” and frowns at him in confusion, which then turns to worry. “You gettin’ enough sleep? Enough to eat?” It always makes warmth rather than heat blossom beneath his rib cage, even if he knows that Doc would probably ask one of the Krauts that before turning them in if they broke through a gap in the line looking really unwell.

“Who is?” He says with a genial smile and a shrug, and Doc doesn’t push the issue, letting him go on his way. 

Most of the time, Spina’s a little weird about Doc Roe. 

-

One night, Spina drops into his foxhole and Babe’s already there, and he nearly shits a brick thinking it’s Doc. The other medic prefers to stick to his own hole, a much shallower and uncovered one, which strikes Spina as madness rather than dedication to their task but means he’s never got the slender little figure huddled against his side when he wakes up from one of his subconscious’s custom-made smutty movies. He’ll take the trade-off as long as Doc doesn’t give himself pneumonia or anything out there.

“Babe, _shit!_ You scared the fuckin’ daylights outta me, what -”

And then he sees Babe’s face. The cheerful redhead’s eyes are swollen and bleary, his mouth twisted in a horrible grimace as he seems to fight more tears upon Spina’s arrival. That’s when Spina remembers the quiet, grim dinner hour they all shared, others whispering or murmuring about the patrol gone wrong but Babe maintaining his stony silence the entire time. Spina put together that Julian was the one Babe had talked about in the past, but somehow he didn’t make the connection between Babe’s cold demeanour and that loss; maybe because he was far too focussed on the guilty pinch of Doc’s expression as he sat well away from the rest of them as was his habit, a look that said he was owning far more of the responsibility for Julian’s death than actually belonged to him, at least as Spina heard the story told.

“Hey, Babe, _hey…_ ” He says in a quiet, helpless voice, reaching for some sort of comfort to offer and finding absolutely nothing. There are moments in this war that are just cruel, unfair and horrible and cruel in ways none of them could’ve imagined in their day to day lives before Europe, and this one’s up there on the list. Eventually he just wraps an arm around Babe’s shoulder and pulls him close, resting a hand on his helmet once their sides are pressed flush, and Babe folds into the embrace with surprising ease; he can be a bristly guy sometimes, but right now it looks like he’s got no strength left for bravado. 

For just a brief moment, Spina finds himself wondering why this feels like nothing more than it is – a buddy seeking out warmth and comfort in the face of a horrible situation – when he’d probably spend the entire night sitting perfectly straight with his hands folded in front of him if Doc Roe ever did the same. Well, it’s not like he’s run after every single dame he ever met with his tongue hanging out of his mouth, is it? He can think of a fair few that could get cozy without a single part of him showing any interest. This must be the same in that one way, at least. 

_This_. This wild anomaly that is Eugene Roe; this stray attraction probably born out of loneliness and unlikely to repeat itself when his life returns to normal; this thing that can never, ever get a proper name, never mind change any of the names by which he defines himself.

Just as Spina is about to push Doc out of his mind and focus on Babe’s misery, the man himself slides beneath the tent to land on Babe’s other side and settles in nice and comfortable, favouring Babe with such a relieved smile at the sight of him that Spina’s stomach gives a painful, unmistakably jealous lurch in reaction.

Whatever’s going on between these two, if anything, it’s got exactly nothing to do with him and he’s got exactly no reason to care. Now if he could just start not caring, his life would get a lot easier.

“Gotcha,” Doc says in a tone very close to cheerful, but now’s such a bad time for it to appear that even Spina winces and gives him a pointed look before he can carry on. The smile slowly slips from his face as he, too, takes in just how pained Babe looks, but it only makes him dig through his bag with that single-minded Doc Roe determination and pull out – a chocolate bar. 

Even though it’s obviously not the case, Spina would totally believe Doc if he were to say the chocolate bar materialized in his bag when he realized he needed to offer emotional care rather than physical. He’s uncanny that way sometimes.

And sure enough, Babe seems to find his voice with the help of that small delicacy, even if it’s so choked and waterlogged that it makes Spina’s chest ache. Even Doc can’t find the right words, not when his usual platitudes fall on deaf ears, so eventually he just ends up tucking himself beneath the blanket and pressing against Babe’s other side. He’s not as close and not holding Babe in any way, but Babe drifts off not long afterward, so it must help at least a little.

Now it’s just Spina and Doc, Spina well aware he’s not going to sleep a wink and Doc not looking much like he plans to either. They could close their eyes and pretend if just to fend off the awkwardness, but for some reason they both end up staring into the tiny disc of sky visible between all those damn trees and watching the interminable snowfall instead. It’s probably not at all awkward for Doc, Spina has to admit to himself as he rifles through the contents of his spinning thoughts for some topic of discussion, since he’s pretty sure Doc could sit in silence forever and not feel any discomfort. 

He, on the other hand, will lose his mind if he has to pass the entire night this way.

Spina’s got no idea how the topic of traiteuses occurs to him, but he’s discussed it very briefly with Doc before, and he thinks it’ll work fine. 

“My grandma was a traiteuse,” Doc says softly, his voice even warmer and more sweetly soothing with a hint of fondness tugging at the edges, and Spina amends _fine_ to _stroke of genius._

“Your grandmother? No shit!” He can’t help but laugh to himself because as incredible as that sounds, it also offers a sort of explanation for Doc’s uncanny ability to care for others – it could be something spiritual, passed down in the blood. Stranger things have happened.

Doc’s voice is like warm honey, something Spina’s never felt or tasted but knows it would be just like this, and he glances at Spina as he talks with a fond little smile that Spina knows damn well is for the memory of his grandmother, but – well. A little pretending has never hurt anyone, as long as they remember it’s just pretend.

“Jesus,” Spina finally says a bit breathlessly, trying to take in the story itself _and_ the intimate moment that just passed between he and Doc as it was shared. Babe’s out like a light now, his helmet pressing heavy against Spina’s shoulder but not causing any real discomfort, so it’s not hard to imagine that he’s just stepped outside to stargaze with Doc in some other life instead of being trapped in a foxhole between bloodbaths in the frozen wastelands of Belgium. 

Schlocky, so cute he makes himself feel nauseous with the thought, but not hard. 

“I’m still tryin’ to figure out why they picked me for a medic. God knows. Snap of a finger and just like that, you’re a medic.” He doesn’t exactly mean to bring down the pleasantly nostalgic mood Doc has spun around them or the magic of the setting, but processing Doc’s story has left him feeling even more ridiculous than ever here. Going in without expectations because he couldn’t begin to guess what he should expect has led him into such a vortex of insanity, from the situation to some very core parts of who he thinks he is and what he thinks he wants, that he can’t figure out why he ever trusted in fate that way. 

What made him think he could heal people, or even patch them up properly, when there are really women out there who can pray away sickness and pain? Or even people like Doc, who just seem to have caretaking as part of their natural instincts? 

“I’ve had enough of playing doctor,” he sighs, then glances over at Doc, who’s gone silent since he moved on to this topic and has a look on his face that makes Spina wonder if he’s stumbled onto something uncomfortable. “How about you?”

Doc doesn’t say anything in return. He seems to have shut off, which he’s been known to do in Spina’s company before, disappearing into the mind Spina imagines as a massive clockwork machine full of whirling cogs and jets of steam that never pause to give Doc any rest. If that is the case, then he thinks that now might be a good time for him to leave Doc to his thoughts and attempt sleep again.

It feels like no more than a second or two has passed since Spina had that thought when he opens his eyes to find sunlight shining off the fresh snow bright enough to blind a man, Babe just starting to stir at his side, and Doc long gone. Part of him wonders if that whole conversation after Babe fell asleep was a dream, and he never really comes to a decision on the idea either way.

Then it finally hits him – _sunlight!_ – and he shakes Babe awake before running off to follow the sound of cheers, his drowsy worries nothing but a distant memory.

-

Before Spina met Doc Roe, he didn’t know much of anything about Louisiana. He was able to discern that Doc was from somewhere in the nebulous area he thought of as The South by his accent, but that didn’t fit with the other language he often heard Doc slip into during moments of intense concentration, which he was pretty sure he recognized as French. Still just curious and a bit in awe of the man, not yet facing the sort of carnal desires that would get him struck down by the hand of God Himself if he dared to confess them, he asked Doc about his heritage and began to learn bits and pieces about Cajun tradition. Things like the waning grasp on their language among younger generations, the differences between most forms of French and Louisiana’s distinct patois, and the history of traiteurs and traiteuses. 

One thing he’s been able to pick up on his own is that Doc speaks French very easily and naturally, but tends to slip into it rather than appearing to make any sort of conscious choice. It’s not exactly a bad sign, from what he can tell, but points to a different level of thought than the one he occupies in his regular, day-to-day life. 

The day after that bizarre, intimate night sharing Spina’s foxhole, the day supplies finally rain down from the heavens and Doc rushes to Bastogne for the things they’ve needed so desperately, he returns in a state Spina’s never seen from him before. He’s distant from the very space he inhabits, not just from the people around him, his eyes vacant in a face pinched with tension. No one can quite reach him, even if they manage to coax out a response, and he'll only respond – even for someone so taciturn by nature, he’s fallen alarmingly dumb. 

And when Spina does hear him speak, it’s mostly to himself, and mostly in French.

-

“He won’t talk to anyone, Spina. Wouldn’t even look at me when I got his dinner for him. I don’t wanna say he’s crackin’ up, but it’s really -”

“You think I didn’t fuckin’ notice? We’re a goddamn team out there and he’s checked out on everything but the job, and you think I didn’t _fuckin’ notice?_ Get your head outta your ass, Babe, and keep it away from me ‘til you can tell me something about Doc I don’t know.”

“Jesus, Ralph…”

“And I’ll knock you out if you call him nuts again.”

“I didn’t call him nuts! We’re all crackin’ up a bit out here, maybe he just needs a break.”

“He’s got no time for a break. _We’ve_ got no time for a break. We gotta patch up the holes and keep your asses alive no matter how we’re feelin’.”

“ _Alright!_ What crawled up your ass and died?”

Nothing crawled up his ass and died. Something wormed its way into his heart, distracting him with all sorts of sensations throughout the rest of his body until it had taken full hold, and now he’s at its mercy.

But he can’t tell Babe that. He can’t tell anyone that. In some ways, he feels a lot like Doc looks right now: nearly paralyzed by the effort it’s taking him to hold back a scream that will never stop if he lets it start.

-

When Doc pops back into his foxhole alone, in the early hours of Christmas morning of all damn times, Spina’s absolutely sure he’s dreaming. Either that or _he’s_ cracked before Doc got the chance, his fantasies so real that he can’t find his way out of them anymore. 

“I’ve had enough, too,” Doc says in a hushed, guilty whisper seldom heard outside confessionals, as though he’s admitting to the murder of the entire company rather than a brief moment of doubt in his ability to save them. “I’ve had enough of pretendin’ I can keep anyone alive out here – it’s a goddamn war, Spina, it’s all about one side killin’ the other, why’d they try and tell us we could play God? People like us, medics and nurses, they scream for us day and night and I hear it in my dreams, I hear it when everyone’s asleep, I don’t think I’m ever gonna _stop_ hearin’ it -”

Spina isn’t dreaming. He’s also distantly aware that he’s got unshed tears burning behind his eyelids, but it seems like the least important thing in the world right now.

“Eugene,” he whispers, holding his arms out but not moving to embrace the other man and pull him closer as he did with Babe; he’s still a bit too reverent in Doc’s company for that kind of forwardness. “Eugene, c’mere.”

He’s certain Doc will never take him up on his offer, especially when his spine snaps straight and he shoots Spina a sidelong, distinctly suspicious look. But Spina meets his stare without flinching, and Doc stares back, and Spina never lets his arms drop, and Doc collapses forward against Spina’s chest before he even realizes it’s happened. 

God, he’s shaking like a leaf, so small and fragile in this moment that Spina’s almost afraid to hold him. He’s equally afraid of Doc shattering without anyone to hold him together, though, so he wraps his arms tightly around the broken form of his – hero? Crush? Object of lust? Love? – his fellow medic and pulls Doc’s helmet off so that he can rest his cheek, and then his lips, right against that wild shock of black hair. 

And the thing is, once Spina starts kissing Doc, even just a chaste kiss pressed into his hair, he can’t stop.

He kisses Doc’s hair again and again, and when Doc looks up at him in confusion, he takes the opportunity to kiss Doc’s forehead and temple and just beneath his left eye to see if he’s shed any tears (he hasn’t.) “Spina,” Doc says, and then, “ _Ralph,_ ” his voice more urgent because Spina isn’t stopping, he’s following the sharp line of Doc’s cheekbone with his lips and then kissing the cold-reddened tip of his nose and then finally, _finally_ daring to press his mouth right against Doc’s and face the fallout when it comes.

At first Doc just goes still, so still that he hardly seems to be breathing, and Spina has a moment to feel a sickening wash of guilt for pushing his desires on Eugene when he was at his most vulnerable before Doc pushes him against the back of the foxhole and kisses him so hard that his teeth dig into the insides of his lips. Spina’s barely caught his breath and managed to register what’s happening when Doc climbs into his lap, straddling him with his slender, bony thighs clinging tight to Spina’s much softer ones, and Spina can no longer bring himself to care why this is happening. 

All he can do is curl his hands into the fabric of Doc’s jacket and hold on for dear life.

-

When Doc comes, thrusting into Spina’s grip with a violence that shocks and excites him in equal measure, he lets out the same sort of half-sob that Spina has since Doc became the sole inspiration for his orgasms.

It sounds a bit like _Babe_ beneath the hitching, rasping breaths, but Spina doesn’t dwell on that. 

Instead, he focuses on the fact that Doc’s hands are better than he ever could’ve imagined, and Doc’s breath feels like fire against the crook of his neck as he works Spina to his own orgasm – always the considerate caretaker, even now – and he obliges Doc with a swell and crest of pleasure that makes him see nothing but white behind his eyelids: Bastogne white, blizzard white, Eugene Roe’s near-frostbitten skin white. He sobs out one word again and again, not just half-sobs this time because his cheeks are wet, he’s actually crying:

“Gene, Gene, Gene, Gene, _Gene_ -”

He might even sound a bit like Babe Heffron in that moment, his voice shrill and breaking, his South Philly inflection the broadest anyone ever hears it. He hopes Doc likes it, if he does.

As they return to their senses, the world outside Spina’s foxhole roars to life with blinding flashes of light and explosions that shake the earth beneath and around them, and Doc is on his feet and gone in the time it takes Spina to blink the afterimages from his eyes.

-

Apparently Doc Roe freezes for the first time that night – not literally, not from the cold, but in the face of a man who needs treatment – and first needs to be dragged from his foxhole, then snapped out of a walking fugue state. Babe tells Spina all this while gesturing dramatically with one hand wrapped in a scrap of blue fabric. Spina finds he can’t tear his eyes from the flash of blue.

“Oh, that. He cut my hand by accident while I was – oh! Spina! When he was fixin’ it up, he finally called me Babe. Can you believe that?” 

Babe’s smile feels like the first beam of sunlight to cut through thin curtains after a night of hard drinking. 

-

There are moments in this war that are just cruel, unfair and horrible and cruel in ways none of them could’ve imagined in their day-to-day lives before Europe, but this is not one of them. 

Babe Heffron rediscovers his smile, and Doc Roe smiles much more than anyone remembers him doing before, and Doc Spina survives and stays sane. One can’t even expect that much in war, as he now knows from experience, so that must mean he’s doing alright.


End file.
